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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Making Room for New Life

The final remnants of our last
big snow of the year finally melted away this week, and when I stopped to look
at the scraggly remains of my mums that are planted by the front sidewalk (I’m
afraid they were run over a time or two by my kiddos and their bikes…) I
noticed tiny little green sprouts coming up underneath the old, dead stems on
one of them. I looked over at a second
plant, one that still had the bulk of last year’s growth hanging on, all dried
out and brown, and I couldn’t see any evidence of new growth. I wondered if perhaps I need to break off all
the old, dead stems to make room for the new ones to sprout. (Keep in mind that I am very new to this
whole flower gardening thing…) And then
I started thinking: how much of last year’s junk am I holding on to, and would
I be experiencing “new growth” if I let go of all that old stuff?

Second Corinthians 5:17 tells us
that when we are in Christ, our old life is gone and a new one has begun. For someone who has never before experienced
redemption through Christ, this is an absolutely magnificent thing; the old,
sinful lifestyle is gone and a new, spotless life is put into motion. Your sins are no longer held against you and
you have been given the gift of freedom from sin (Romans 6). You no longer have any obligation to do anything that your old, sinful nature
prods you to do. And not only that, but
you are now no longer responsible for the debt that your sin incurred! If you
have ever experienced the suffocating pressure of being in debt that was
completely beyond your ability to repay, then you can understand the amazing
freedom that God has given us by allowing His Son to pay our spiritual debt.

But this “new life,” this
freedom, is not just for new believers.
Leviticus 3:22-23 tells us that God’s mercy, His compassion, is new each
and every morning. Which means that you,
being bought with the blood of Christ, your debt paid long ago, can still
experience that newness each and every day.
Perhaps it’s not your own sin that is holding you; perhaps it is the
beating you have taken from the world, or even from someone really close to you,
that is crowding out any signs of new life.
Events that happened last week or last year, or maybe even a decade ago,
are still hanging around your heart like last year’s dead foliage. Perhaps you're living a life of regret for an
opportunity missed or a poor choice that you made. Or maybe you deal with the resentment of
choices that were made for you. You may
need to forgive yourself or the person who hurt you, but let’s be honest,
sometimes – even after you have forgiven someone – the hurt lingers. And when you give that pain permission to
keep hanging around by thinking about it and reliving the situation time and
again, you are keeping yourself from experiencing the life of freedom that
Jesus bought for you with His own blood. Are you willing to let God take those things
from you, to prune them from the everyday reality of your life? Or are you clinging to them, dwelling on
them, letting them suffocate the tender shoots of new life that are waiting to
sprout?

I challenge you today to make a
conscious decision to surrender whatever it is that is keeping you from
experiencing new life in Christ.
Visualize it; picture God’s hand reaching down and breaking away all
those dead stems and leaves, and see your new life poking through the soil as
all of that dead stuff is swept away. Whether
you need to confess your own sin, or whether you need to hand over the hurt
that someone else inflicted on you, pray and surrender those things to God, the
Giver of new life.

"...anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)

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Hi, I'm Angela!

But most most people know me as Angie...or Mom...or Mrs. Logan. With four school-aged children and a music-teacher husband, life gets a little chaotic and a lot messy. I'm sure you can relate! When I'm not chasing my kids or cleaning up after them or snuggled up close with them, I am busy pursuing my passion of studying and teaching God's Word. It is my heart's truest desire to be used by God to shine His light into our dark world.